


Malady

by Zoi no miko (zoi_no_miko)



Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Missing Scene, Oral Sex, Wine, making fuck, wet clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:58:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoi_no_miko/pseuds/Zoi%20no%20miko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place near the end of Three Musketeers. After a certain execution, Aramis makes sure Athos doesn't disappear into one of his funks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Malady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElDiablito_SF](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/gifts).



> COMMON GOALS AND MUTUAL RESPECT

“Leave me, Aramis. You do not wish to share wine with me tonight.”

The small room of the inn was darkened apart from a single candle on the table, the tallow melting more on one side than the other, leaving the flame to smoke and flicker erratically. One of two wine bottles that sat beside it was near empty, but he was familiar enough with Athos’s drinking habits to know that the man was not yet drunk, not even nearly so. And tonight, he thought, taking in the way his friend sat quietly at the table, he likely would not become as such.

“Which is, I suppose, why Grimaud has earned a night off?” Aramis ignored the previous request, closing and bolting the door to the room behind him before crossing the room. He took Athos’s sodden cloak off the other chair and hung it from two hooks to better dry, then claimed the chair for himself.

“Everyone has,” Athos replied, sipping from the wine in his glass. “Myself included. You would be best to remember that.”

Aramis watched him, one hand resting on the rough surface of the table. “Many times I have heeded your request and left you to your melancholy, and you have spent it at the bottom of a bottle. Or many bottles, to be accurate. But I don’t sense this is the case right now.” He leaned forward when Athos said nothing, continuing. “I know this burden has haunted you for years, my friend. I know that time has only made it more bitter. I cannot in all good faith leave you alone after all that has been done tonight.”

“What was done tonight has nothing to do with faith,” Athos answered, returning his gaze coolly. “And as such, my friend Priest, you are released from your duty. Go.”

“Even if you release me from my duty of faith, you cannot release me from my duty as your friend,” Aramis pressed back. “In part because that which was done is only survivable because of the strength we give to each other as friends, but more because I love you, and denying that love is a sin I will not commit.”

Athos drained his glass and set it down with a sigh, seeming now even more weary. “I have not, and will never ask you to deny that,” he replied quietly. “Just as I will never deny it. But it is because of that love that I ask you, with every bit of love that I possess, to leave me. Even your light cannot brighten the darkness in my soul tonight.”

“I do not come to brighten it.” Aramis reached for the open bottle of Spanish wine, filling Athos’s glass. “I too was party to the judgment that was passed. We all acted to send that snake to face God’s justice. I come because a burden shared is lighter on both. That is the strength and solace that is gained from love.”

Athos said nothing, but pushed the other wine glass towards him, filling it from the remainder of the bottle before moving to uncork the second.

For a time, they merely drank in silence, the flickering of the candle growing ever lower.

“I’m not certain I will ever be completely rid of her,” Athos said finally, after dividing the last of the wine between their glasses. “Before, when I thought her dead, the memory of everything I had done hung over me no matter what I did and where I went. The injury she dealt me cut deep into my soul, tainted me with this darkness that I have never been able to throw off. Now that I know her dead for certain, and also the extent of her deeds….” He stopped, and gave a soft, helpless laugh. “Perhaps I should be relieved that her evil will never flourish again. But instead I just feel… strangely empty.”

“An emptiness left behind now that the taint of her existence has left you,” Aramis replied, drinking deeply of the wine. “An emptiness that can be filled again by things of your choosing, Athos.”

“By things noble and godly?” Athos gave a soft snort, mirroring Aramis’s actions and setting his glass back down. “It wouldn’t suit me, my friend. Piety is your game, not mine.”

“I said nothing of godliness or piety,” Aramis replied calmly, and drained his glass. “For the moment I speak of nothing more simple or complex than love, which I have and always will offer to you.”

“And I believe that is more godly than anything.” Athos drained his glass and then held out a hand to him, eyes dark in the flickering flame. “Come.”

Despite his earlier protestations, Athos fell upon his companion with a passion that was undimmed by the rain or the heavy events of the night. He tangled his fingers in the back of Aramis’s hair, claiming his mouth with kisses that were at once tender and urgent, tasting of heat and wine and the spirit underneath everything that was Athos. He kissed down Aramis’s throat, holding back savagery until he reached the crook of his neck, then biting down at his fair skin, marking him where none would see but Athos himself. The storm had left both their clothes damp, which was reason enough to devoid each other of the offending fabric between the heat of kisses, and the touch of hands to flesh was in patterns that had been mapped hundreds of times.

Finally Athos drew back, eyes moving over the lines of Aramis’s body in the flicker of the candle light. The strength and discipline of a swordsman mixed with Aramis’s own particular gentility and beauty, all making up the exquisitely irresistible form that was Aramis. “Time after time you save me from myself,” he murmured, stroking his fingertips down the side of his neck and over his chest and watching him shudder. He slid his hands around Aramis’s waist and down to cup the firm curves of his ass, pulling their bodies together to trap the hard proofs of their passion between them. “You are the only thing that cures me of my malady.”

Aramis smoothed his hands up Athos’s chest, taking his face in his hands, thumbs smoothing over his beard. “And I will be here for as long as you need me.”

“Because you’re too damn stubborn to leave me to my own devices?” Athos asked with a smirk, and Aramis gave a soft chuckle.

“Persistence is a virtue. Though I rather think there are some benefits for myself as well. Speaking of which, we should be in bed.”

Athos drew him down into the inn’s bed, which was neither too hard nor too narrow, but just another bed of hundreds. Aramis was all that mattered, the warmth and passion of his body under him, arching up against him, gasping as Athos kissed down his chest and lathed at small, hard nipples with his tongue. The light from the candle stub sputtered out, but that didn’t matter. He knew Aramis’s body better than anything, knew how licking along the long-healed scar against his ribs would make him shudder, knew just how to nuzzle the length of his cock and suck at the head to cause the most delicious little whimper. He closed his eyes to his lover’s taste, lavishing his shaft with long laps of his tongue, licking around the flared head and sucking at the tip to taste his arousal. At the same time he worked his oiled fingers into the tightness of his lover’s body stretching him open with more than a little urgency.

Aramis pushed back against his fingers with a little choked groan, fingers tangling in his hair. “Enough. Fuck me. We both need it.” He gave a soft cry as Athos moved to kneel between his legs, pushing his thighs up almost to his chest as he ground his cock against his ass, sliding between the cheeks and over the hole almost teasingly. “Now, Athos - !”

“I thought patience was a virtue?” Athos pressed against his ass before he could answer, pushing past the tight ring of muscle and into his heat in slow, insistent thrusts until he was sheathed to the hilt. He paused for a moment, eyes closed, just letting himself take in the moment – the low thrum of the wine in his veins, the scent and taste of Aramis, the feel of their bodies together. Then Aramis gave an impatient little grunt, arching up against him, fingers clawing at his thighs to pull him closer.

“I said persistence,” he growled breathlessly. “My patience is growing thin. Fuck me or I’ll tie you to the bedpost and have my way with you.”

“Will you now?” Athos leaned closer, punctuating his words with a sharp thrust before starting to move in him, deep and hard and even. “I think not. I think this – “ he gave a harder thrust, breath catching, before continuing. “This is the consequence of being so stubborn.”

“Then I accept it willingly,” Aramis breathed back, pulling Athos down into his kisses, sucking and biting at his lips as he groaned into his mouth. This was why he could never push Aramis away even when he wished the whole world would forget him: this pleasure, this perfection of form, two bodies completely in synch, moving together for a common goal.

“Harder,” Aramis gasped, voice rough with passion, fingers digging into his back, crying out wordlessly as Athos answered his plea. He wouldn’t, couldn’t hold back, hips snapping into the welcoming heat of his lover’s body again and again. This was the only place he could ever completely let go, and he loved Aramis all the more fiercely for it, sucking and biting at his neck and shoulders as they moved together again and again. Sensation curled hot at his core, building with each thrust until there was nothing but Aramis, the pleasure of his body overwhelming everything as he came deep inside him, shuddering and gasping his name. He felt Aramis follow him, fingers bruising battle scars of passion into his back.

“Now do you regret not spending the night alone?” Aramis’s voice was a warm tease in his ear as they came down, his fingers stroking through Athos’s hair.

“Only insomuch as I won’t be getting any sleep tonight,” Athos returned, claiming his lover’s teasing mouth in a warm kiss.

***


End file.
